Re: [GLISS] basics

[David Kastrup]

Janek Warchoł <address@hidden> writes:

> On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 8:21 PM, Joseph Rushton Wakeling
> <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Actually, rather than "what users find difficult" (which I agree is
>> important in and of itself), perhaps it's better to take a different tack:
>> to try and prepare a systematic specification for the musical notations that
>> Lilypond should support.
>> Then, go through each one and identify the extent Lilypond supports that
>> notation
>
> This is a good idea in itself, but i'm afraid we'll drown in the flood
> of suggestions if we ask this question now.  Currently we want to
> focus on syntax alone.

If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

"Hard to do" is a large problem class, and it is not necessarily clear
to users which problems could be diminuished by syntax changes, which
are accessible nicely with the existing syntax, and which would warrant
different mechanisms and frameworks.

One thing to keep in mind is that every non-trivial snippet is an
example of musical notation that LilyPond has no ready-made solution
for.

The text-based input of LilyPond makes it orders of magnitude better for
swapping home-made recipes than WYSIWYG systems, but we should not lose
sight of the value of tweak-free black-box solutions over that.  The
idea with a black-box approach is not necessarily that you _can't_ open
the box and look inside, but that you in general don't need to do so.

I am digressing.  We can't really get developers to agree all that much
about what problems should be tackled via syntactic means, so it would
be a bit much to demand the same from users before offering feedback.

So I think "focusing on syntax alone" is likely left to us when sifting
through the reports.

-- 
David Kastrup